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Wednesday, December 3, 1997

SMOKE SCREEN:

Proposal conceals country's effort to distort historical factsBy Ardashes Kassakhian

I would like to respond to Demir Barlas's article, which appeared Nov. 26 as "Looking past misconceptions, stereotypes of Turks." He claimed to be in defense of the proposed establishment of an Ottoman and modern Turkish studies chair here at UCLA. The arguments that Barlas used in his article only detracted from the issue at hand. By attempting to present this situation as an issue of Turks defending their culture from Armenian "propagandists," he not only insulted his own intelligence but the intelligence of the entire American academic community. The groups, which include students of various backgrounds who have voiced their concerns regarding this chair's proposed establishment, are not insulting UCLA's integrity as Mr. Barlas's article suggests.

Despite Mr. Barlas's efforts to create a smoke screen of racial tension surrounding the gift of $1 million, the facts still remain unchanged: 1. Turkey is one of the worst human rights violators in the world. 2. It has more journalists and scholars in prison than any other country in the world. That's academic freedom and being "unfashionable" for you. Guess the government of Turkey has yet to warm up to the right of freedom of speech. 3. It has attempted to conceal these and other abuses, including the current massacre of its Kurdish population and illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus, by engaging in a very active campaign of revisionist/denialist propaganda. 4. The money that the university's history department has received (a check for $250,000 has already been accepted prior to the department's approval of the chair) was given directly by the same ambassador who not only represents the Turkish government and all of its inhumane practices, but who has also spearheaded the government's attempts at infiltrating U.S. universities with the government's money in order to manipulate and distort historical facts. 5. The conditions that the government has placed upon the chair are not only restrictive and confining, but further prove Turkey's attempts at disrupting academic research and filtering out those professors and scholars who do not share Turkey's political views.

Why do the conditions restrict the holder of the chair to use official Turkish archives and maintain "cordial relations with academic circles in Turkey"? Since the chair is to be the study of history of the Ottoman Empire, why isn't there a condition that would require the holder of the chair to speak Turkish and one other Ottoman language as well as Armenian, Greek, Romanian, Hebrew, Lithuanian or Arabic? Alan W. Fisher, who was president of the Turkish Studies Association (TSA) from 1982 to 1984 and editor of the TSA Bulletin from 1985 to 1988, felt it appropriate to state in diplomatic terms the concerns which his colleagues expressed regarding the problems of accessing Turkish archives (Alan W. Fisher, "Research Access in Turkey," Turkish Studies Bulletin 14, 2; September 1990). It is stated by Fisher that "the detailed project description (required to carry out research in Turkey) has raised doubts in the minds of many about the likelihood of non-academic ­ that is, political ­ standards being applied to their applications."

The above-mentioned points are all backed by facts available from the United Nation's archives, Amnesty International, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists and numerous petitions signed by hundreds of scholars condemning Turkey's attempts to infringe upon the academic integrity of our universities. This issue is important to UCLA because if this money is accepted from a tainted source such as the Turkish government, it will set a precedent for others to donate money in order to further their agendas as well.

As a student who is majoring in history and minoring in Near Eastern studies, I will be the first to agree with Mr. Barlas that an Ottoman studies course is indeed necessary at a university as diverse as UCLA. However, as a very proud UCLA student, I feel it to be my duty to inform the UCLA community and make them aware of such attempts as the one by the Turkish government to buy legitimacy for its past and current crimes with the reputation of such prestigious universities as ours.